


Any Other Name

by RemixConstellation



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Arthur Is King, Crystal Cave, F/M, Illegal Magic, Implied Magic Use, Known magic, Past Character Death, Roses, So many roses for some reason, names have power
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-08
Updated: 2018-11-08
Packaged: 2019-08-20 20:48:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16562888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RemixConstellation/pseuds/RemixConstellation
Summary: She fits him, like nothing else he has ever worn. Nothing he will ever wear again. There’s a bounty on their heads. One they cannot out run. One that flows in their veins and lights up their eyes. Sometimes, in the glow of the fire, he wonders what crime it is to just be born. How could a king with magic under his sign, put a sword through a sister’s chest for the magic under her skin?





	Any Other Name

Merlin loves her. She is wild and fierce, a turbulent storm in a gemstone dress. Wild green eyes glowing with mirth, glowing with a power she has only just discovered. He loves her, and his is in love with her, but he also fears her. Greatly.

She is the green of spring, freshly birthed. Flowers drip from her fingers, delicate and soft. Pretty little roses, in the faintest of pastels. She crowns her head in shimmery bouquets. He thinks, sometimes, she wishes the circlet above her brow was golden. She knows it can never be. But the flowers around her head are heavy with the thorns she cannot pry off. (Merlin says, _she doesn’t want to._ )

In the quiet moments, hidden among soft furs behind a stony wall, Merlin can almost forget the crimes they’ve committed. Here, they are not hunted. Here, the cries of the dead don’t ring between their ears. Here, they are boy and girl, intertwined and nothing but skin and affection.

She is soft beneath him. Soft and delicate. Her hands, ever graceful, are growing the calluses of a woman who works, and sometimes it makes him sad, the way the softness fades. But her hips are still narrow and her breast rounded. He likes the wild curls she wears.  She fits beneath him the way armor once fit the king he served. Custom made, molded to his shape.

She fits him, like nothing else he has ever worn. Nothing he will ever wear again. There’s a bounty on their heads. One they cannot out run. One that flows in their veins and lights up their eyes. Sometimes, in the glow of the fire, he wonders what crime it is to just be born. How could a king with magic under his sign, put a sword through a sister’s chest for the magic under her skin?

She soothes his worries, honey-sweet lips pressed to his lids, honey-brushed voice wetting his ears. He digs his fingers into the mountain trapped between her breast. Her breath is ice across his cheeks.

The fire in their little hut burns bright, even in the midst of summer.

The ice curls across the floor, thickest during the heat of day.

Merlin sometimes forget she should be dead. He forgets that he has fucked with nature, to feel her heart beneath his palm. She reminds him when she ask, “Say my name, lover.” He can’t. That was the deal he made and the price she paid. A life for a name with the power to unwrite Camelot.

“Come, my love. Lie with me.” He answers. She does, and the skies ripple like pools in a summer thunder. She does, and the mountains rumble their approval. She does, and the swell of her belly is a memory Merlin hides beneath his tongue.

He hides it beside the name of a king he was meant to kneel before.

Merlin misses the way her name taste. He misses the comforts of a bed not built on stone, and the taste of bread dipped in rosemary. He misses milk warm from the cow and stew that’s sat for days. She doesn’t, but she doesn’t eat these days.

They hide away on sunny days, deep beneath the trees. They hide away from brilliant rays, that might reflect against their skins. The king and his men tear through their home, the swords ringing in the air. Their horses thunder, louder than the hounds of hell, and Merlin holds the mountains between his finger tips.

She breaths, fog and mist and death. She breaths and the crystals grow grey and the king cries out, but he cannot die. He _will not die._

Merlin has stripped him of his name. Merlin holds his name between his teeth. He bites, hard and bruising and bloody. He needs the blood of the king to reign so that his Queen might live. Spells are tricky things he’s learned. And there are so many names in his mouth he cannot say.

“My love, are you tired?”

He kisses her brow and he smiles at green-gold eyes and he wonders if she knows his name. “I’m never tired when I’m with you.”

She smiles and butterflies burst in great clouds around them. Somewhere, Merlin swears a baby laughs and a brook bubbles. He could just be wishing though. He feeds himself the roots they find and he weaves her a gown to match her rose-petal crown.

She’s a vision, bathed in reds and oranges, vibrant against her lilly skin. She’s a vision, and he thinks, _the king will never know what he has lost._

“What is my name, love?” She ask him underneath the snow. It’s a quiet day and the king is away. Little birds had nested near them and the air is fragrant with mint and meat. He plucks a blade of grass from the ground. Green, like her eyes, like new life, like the hope he’ll always strive for.

He doesn’t answer her. He slips away to their crystals, and he watches through the glassy surface. The king sleeps beside his pretty wife, and he raises a pretty babe. Merlin reaches through and touches the child, who smiles in her sleep. Has the Queen seen the green lurking in her eyes?

Merlin listens as his love rises from her soft furs. She slips beside him and she breaths and Merlin’s world goes grey and cold. “Come love, let the king sleep. Tell me my name.”

He presses his hand to her belly, roses fill the stones around them, and the air is heavy with their perfume. “You are my love.”

“That is not my name.” She says it soft and she says it sad, but she does not pull away.

“Are you tired, my love?”

“Always.”  She says.

“Your name is the cost of your life,” he answers.

“By any name, I am your love, so what is my name?” Her voice is gentle, but her hands are cages around his jaw.

“Anna,” he gifts her. Because this is the closest to life she will ever get, and he cannot take from her this little warmth.


End file.
